New Azrael stalks Gotham's streets

Fabian Nicieza and Ramon Bachs's ongoing Azrael series will debut in October with a new hero behind the mask.

The original anti-hero Jean-Paul Valley debuted in 1992's Batman: Sword of Azrael and went on to star in his own title before his apparent death in Azrael #100.

New Azrael Michael Washington Lane was introduced during Grant Morrison's run on DC's Batman as a policeman trained as a possible replacement for Batman.

"Lane is an emotionally, psychologically and physically scarred man," Nicieza told Newsarama. "He has lost nearly everything in his life that has ever mattered to him - his family, his job, his faith - and we show that even what did matter to him was always approached in a questionable fashion.

"He has a strong desire to 'do the right thing', but is often very uncertain about how to go about first identifying what the right thing is, and then how to go about doing it. Half the time he just wings it, the other half he is scarily resolute in his decision-making. It’s fun to write someone whose decisions run the gamut of extremes from absolute certainty to 'what the hell'."

Azrael will be reintroduced to the Batman titles over three issues in October; Batman Annual #27, Detective Comics Annual #11 and Azrael #1.